…everything is so very polarized that it seems, at worst, that there
are only two possible positions, or at best, that there is only a
single continuum between two possible positions. If the daughter comes
home talking about non-violence, and the mother is a supporter of her
government’s wars, then the daughter must be a damn communist, too.

…

…as the theologians have increasingly explicated, “the powers” get
made manifest in a variety of institutions, -isms, systems, and
structures. “The powers” are created for good (per the letter to the
Colossians) but overstep their bounds, and rather than serving
humankind, get “hell-bent on their own survival” (per Walter Wink) and
thence begin to enslave and oppress.

…

…to those who foolishly idealize “the free market,” we insist that
the powers of darkness are cunning, baffling, and powerful, and that
they do in fact co-opt the supposedly free market for purposes of
greed and grasping which corrupts and controls as much as any
tyrannical dictator. Or to those who foolishly idealize “the welfare
state,” we insist that the powers of darkness are cunning, baffling,
and powerful, and that the over-weening bureaucratic mechanisms of
control do in fact limit creative human creativity, and create
dependence.

…

The centralization enacted by Joseph for the good of the starving
Hebrews provided the very bureaucratic tyranny that served to enslave
those same Hebrews. History never sits still. Thus neither can our
politics. If we find ourselves lumping together into one mass group of
political enemies anyone who disagrees with us (as in the irrational
conclusion that a pacifist must be a communist), the perhaps we have
become enslaved to the powers which use a binary, polarizing view of
the world to create enemies, stratify communities, and breed
hostility, precisely for the good of the corrupt powers, but never for
the true good of humankind.